Haunting Without Ghosts: Spectral Realism in Colombian Literature, Film, and Art

Winner, William M. LeoGrande Prize, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, 2022 For half a century, cultural production in Colombia has labored under the weight of magical realism-above all, the works of Gabriel García Márquez-where ghosts told stories about the country's violent past and warned against a similarly gruesome future. Decades later, the story of violence in Colombia is no less horrific, but the critical resources of magical realism are depleted. In their wake comes "spectral realism." Juliana Martínez argues that recent Colombian novelists, filmmakers, and artists-from Evelio Rosero and William Vega to Beatriz González and Erika Diettes-share a formal and thematic concern with the spectral but shift the focus from what the ghost is toward what the specter does. These works do not speak of ghosts. Instead, they use the specter to destabilize reality by challenging the authority of human vision and historical chronology. By introducing the spec